Week Three proved to be a tough to call as we predicted and already heads have rolled in San Fransisco and Buffalo. Its still early days but already several teams look likely to improve significantly on last season.
Our game of the week was the Atlanta Falcons tremendous OT win at the Saints. To be fair if New Orleans had a decent field goal kicker then they would have won it. Hopefully Garrett Hartley will learn to handle the pressure, but a few more performances like this and his NFL career could be a short one.
Best result of the week was Pittsburgh’s move to 3-0 without Big Ben. Charlie Batch successfully swapped the clip board for the Pig skin and grasped is 15 minutes of fame nicely finishing 12 from 17 for 186 yards and 3 touchdowns. His QB rating of 106.5 would have been much higher had he not thrown 2 interceptions. He will be starter again next week and if he can guide them to a 4-0 start with a win over the Ravens then he could argue he should keep the job.
Disaster of the week is a joint award for San Diego & Green Bay, both of whom somehow conspired to lose games they should have won. San Diego once again came up short on their travels despite dominating the game. The Chargers had 518 yards of offense but shot themselves in the foot again with 5 turnovers and 83 yards of penalties. Despite this they only lost thanks to a 99 yard kick off return, the second of the game from Leon Washington. They are either the unluckiest team in the NFL so far or the most complacent and over confident only time will tell which it is.
Green Bay had a much harder task playing away to the 2-0 Chicago Bears but again despite dominating the game lost out due to a sloppy fumble and silly penalties – they gave up 152 yards total and the pass interference call on Morgan Burnett was instrumental in setting up the winning kick.
The Seahawks are now just about favourites for the incredibly weak NFC West and the Bears despite being a little lucky are 3-0 with wins over both the Packers & Cowboys in those stats. This looks like being a very interesting season.
The most relieved fans will be those of Minnesota & Dallas as both finally got off the mark. at 1-2 both still have the chance of fulfilling their preseason billing, however neither can afford too many more losses.
Results (Our successful predictions marked *)
Tennessee 29, NY Giants 10
Pittsburgh 38, Tampa Bay 13 *
Cincinnati 20, Carolina 7 *
Baltimore 24, Cleveland 17 *
Dallas 27, Houston 13 *
Kansas City 31, San Francisco 10
Minnesota 24, Detroit 10 *
New England 38, Buffalo 30 *
Atlanta 27, New Orleans 24 (OT)
St. Louis 30, Washington 16
Philadelphia 28, Jacksonville 3
Arizona 24, Oakland 23 *
Seattle 27, San Diego 20
Indianapolis 27, Denver 13 *
NY Jets 31, Miami 23 *
Chicago 20, Green Bay 17
Week 9-7 – Season 32 – 16
